Art Gallery upholds its mission despite restrictions

Albany, CA — Robert Abrams first opened the Abrams Claghorn Art Gallery in 2015 with a unique structural design.

“The concept is half the space is a pure contemporary art gallery, and the other half is a craft showroom,” Abrams said. “I have about 80 different makers, jewelry, pottery, textiles, wood, anything handmade, to sell, the idea being if I sell stuff from the store then the work in the gallery does not have to be made with marketing in mind. We’re not watering down the message of a gallery show by making it marketable.”

Beyond this structure, the Abrams Claghorn Art Gallery operates under a specific mission: to properly represent the local community by striving to feature local, underrepresented artists.

“I want the collection of artists in the gallery and in the shop to reflect the demographics of the area,” Abrams said. “When I started the gallery, most galleries focus on male artists. But when you look at the demographics, most artists in any given area are women. Right there, if you’re showing mostly men you’re not doing a service to the community.”

For Abrams, this kind of diversity doesn’t stop at balancing male-female artists.
“It’s also important to me to be diverse in every direction,” Abrams said. “By gender identity, national identity, cultural identity; however you want to put it.”

And even through this constant push for diversity in the artists he showcases, Abrams recently found that he was not being diverse enough.

“Certain minority groups were just way under-represented here,” Abrams said. “So, I’ve been working hard getting in touch with leaders in those artist-communities to bring more of them in here.”

This more recent push for greater levels of diversity has already been put in place — the gallery hosted a guest-curated show in September that Abrams insisted must adhere to his diverse expectations.

“That introduced into the studio a larger number of younger people and a good selection of non-white people to the show,” Abrams said. “And everyone was excited about that. And now I have new artists that I’m excited about showing here.”

The local aspect of the gallery’s mission serves to accomplish multiple goals.

“The local part of it was, originally, just because there’s so many local makers around here that I didn’t see the point of going further,” Abrams said. “But it also works out to be a very green idea. When people deliver their work, they leave the work but then they take the packing materials back home with them, so that’s all reused. There just isn’t that kind of waste that you would get in a normal retail environment.”

When the pandemic first broke out in March of 2020, Abrams knew that he would not be able to host his normal shows. But from March through to June — four months that the gallery was closed — Abrams continued hanging shows, featuring the artwork as best as he could.

“We were able to take photos of the show and post those online, and we actually sold a number of works from that show,” Abrams said. “But it was important to continue that sense of normalcy by actually having a show that people could walk by. I made a point of leaving the lights on at night so people could come by and see the show.”

Halfway through June, the gallery was allowed to reopen, albeit with standard Covid-19 restrictions.

In the shows he has hung since then, Abrams has created staggered calendars of the artists whose work is featured, enabling people to come by in safe numbers and at safe distances, to visit specific artists during specific times.

Over the months since the pandemic began, Abrams is now down to one part-time worker, where formerly he employed several full and part-time people. As a by-product of this Covid-19 reality, people are simply leaving their homes less — walking around streets and shopping no longer happens, something that is slowing down business.

“I actually don’t think it’s related to the vaccine or Covid fears, specifically,” Abrams said. “If people start commuting to work again, then it will be a little bit busier. People going out to lunch for their lunch break and then stopping at some neighborhood stores while they’re out is really what’s going to bring back shopping.”

Abrams received a county grant to help him through January, but the gallery has been reduced almost entirely to weekends-only, with most of January and the first three weeks of February being exceptionally quiet.

“It’s not going to be sustainable unless there’s some sort of financial-stability help from the government,” Abrams said.

As the owner of an art gallery that is striving to act as an introduction to art-sales for a wide variety of diverse, new artists, Abrams stressed the importance of gallery shopping, especially during Covid-19.

“One of the things that I always think is a good reason to shop at the gallery is that we’re local, so you’re helping the local economy,” Abrams said. “But more so, you’re giving a lot of artists an opportunity, a place to sell their work. And that is especially important now during Covid because many of my artists make a good chunk of their living at craft fairs. Craft fairs don’t exist anymore. So, this is one of the few places, or for some of them the only place, where they can actually sell their work.”

“My mission has always been to support the local community, but also the new people to this industry,” Abrams added. “I’m not dealing with the big names, I’m dealing with people who are making their first ventures, and this is their opportunity to start developing their resume.”